Cardinals & Marlins “Making Progress” On Marcell Ozuna Swap

11:53am: It seems St. Louis is still not fully zeroed in on Ozuna — or, at least, not just Ozuna. In addition to some pitchers to whom the club has been tied previously, the Cards still seem to have some possible interest in Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, Rosenthal tweets.

And Bob Nightengale tweets the team is “optimistic” of scoring at least one significant hitter with the possibility of another. He also cites Longoria and adds Blue Jays Josh Donaldson as a player who is “in play” for St. Louis, though certainly most indications to date have been that Toronto has little interest in trading him.

11:22am: The Cardinals and Marlins are “making progress” on a deal that would send outfielder Marcell Ozuna to St. Louis, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). These organizations have been tied in chatter of one kind or another for much of the offseason.

We heard yesterday that the Cards were the favorites to land Ozuna. As of that time, though, there were multiple other suitors reportedly still involved and the Cardinals were also eyeing fellow Miami outfielder Christian Yelich.

It is still unclear just how things might come together, but there are quite a number of possible ways the sides could line up. The Cardinals have a host of young outfielders, potentially offering Miami a direct replacement with greater future contract control, along with the sort of youthful pitching that the Marlins covet.

As for Ozuna, he’d be the major stick the Cardinals have sought all winter. While he’s not at the level of former teammate Giancarlo Stanton, he did post an excellent .312/.376/.548 slash with 37 long balls in 2017. And Ozuna is also much friendlier to the checkbook, as he’s projected to earn $10.9MM in his second-to-last season of arbitration eligibility. That relatively light payroll hit might leave the Cards with capacity to make some other impact additions via free agency.

I also like Gyorko better than Longoria at 3B. If your going to pay a lot for a 3B man than I would choose mike moustakas. Probably similar salaries and also a younger player with giving up a draft pick rather than prospects

After listening to Shapiro talk on MLB Network last night, he seems to want to compete and said Donaldson won’t be traded unless it makes the 2018 team better. He’s not moving most likely until they start losing and trade off short term assets.

Well we don’t KNOW they wouldn’t be able to extend him. They could have a 72 hour window to try and if not, no deal. 10 year 350, opt out after 5, although unlikely, it’s not out-of-this-world crazy. Scary that the yanks are circling the waters already.

Progress???? President of Cardinals Baseball operation, John Mozeliak’s favorite word. That means he can’t get any top elite trades or acquisitions from any teams with elite players! Nothing seems to have changed. Still more time. But…….. Mozeliak’s poor track record in upgrading the Cardinals over the past 4-5 years is extremely frustrating to all Cardinal fans. Please let Michael Girsch have full control. Mozeliakcan go dive in the dumpsters with all of his low hanging fruit as for as I’m concerned. All talk….Then a barrage of excuses why the Cardinals couldn’t get a top tiered player. News Flash! It’s not that the Cardinals couldn’t get them Mozeliak. It’s you!!!!!

This honestly doesn’t make sense without another deal ready to go. We have 12 corner outfielders at the moment. If anything it might give us less trade value out of Grichuk and Piscotty as now other teams know we have to move them.

Looks like the Cardinals absolutely robbed the Marlins. Ozuna for Alcantara and some FV45s? W-O’-W!!! So the Cardinals can now turn their attention to Colome/Longo right? You won’t rob the Rays like you did the Marlins though. How about Colome/Longo for Kelly/O’Neill/Grichuk (plus or minus some back-end pieces)?